Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Dog with stupid name

I was minding my own business in the park over the weekend, reading Michael Slater's new Charles Dickens biography (which I recommend very highly, by the way. A fascinating and beautifully researched book. But don't drop it on your foot.)Anyhow, a small and yappy dog ran out of the bushes with a little kid and her mom running right behind it. To get the dog to stop running, they called out its name. "Here, Zagat!'' they said. "Come on, Zagat! Time to go home, Zagat!'' And it made me wonder: what kind of a person would name their kid's dog after a customer rating system? I hope this isn't part of a trend. ("Yelp," at least, would have made some sense.)

2 comments:

Always looking for good book recommendations so thanks, although I'm not sure if I've read enough Dickens to appreciate a biography of him. Also, I think the author is Michael Slater, not Charles Slater.

yup, I stand corrected, and so will that blog posting in roughly 15 seconds from now. Believe me, you'll like this one even if you haven't read a whole lot of Charles Dickens. It's inspiring in the sense that he wrote two of the 'big books' in serial form while holding down a full-time and very intense reporting job. It's also pretty cool to see the way his books were 'interactive' way back in the 1830s. (I think he would have taken to blogging.) He would actually tweak or 'push' a certain character based on audience reactions to the serial installments, released monthly. In other words, he would not have had the opportunity to make those revisions if he had to release the 'big books'' all at once, hardbound. Interesting stuff.